The present invention relates to testers, in particular testers for virtualized Storage Area Networks (SAN).
The priority application describes a Confluence product, code named VSX, which is a networked based Storage Virtualization System that virtualizes all the storage space off storage devices that are connected behind it and aggregates the storage space into a virtual pool(s). VSX also provides services to carve out the virtual pool into volumes of any size. This may include slicing a larger physical LUN (Logical Unit Number) to create a smaller Virtual LUN (vLUN) or concatenation of more 1 physical LUNs to create a large vLUN, etc. FIG. 1 shows a number of hosts 10 assigned VLUNs 12. The VLUNs are made up of LUNs 14, which are stored on physical devices 16.
Existing testers are not designed for a networked based storage virtualization system. These testers verify data using the same paths that were used to write data in the first place—thus the tester will not be able to catch issues with physical re-mapping of the data (which is what most of the Storage Virtualizations devices do) through the same path.
These testers typically verify the volumes as they are presented to them by the volume manager and do not verify the physical layout of these volumes. These tester also require manual set-up of the test environment.